they were just very, very different from the mainstream religion. however in the kind of diverse atmosphere that we are in today, the mainstream has been destroyed. there really is no mainstream left, and even among the larger religious groups, let's say those groups that have a million or more members. the whole spectrum is now here. it's not just a matter of there being christian groups and little bitty other groups. it's a matter of there being large numbers of buddhists, large numbers of hindus, large numbers of muslims, large numbers of jews and so we have a much different scenario. and simplifying things as church, sect, cult doesn't work anymore. the term cult in particular has been transformed into a pejorative term, just for - it really means a group we don't like. and there are all kinds of different reasons why we might not like it but in using it in this kind of pejorative way it truly lost all of its value for religious study as a descriptive term. and in like measure sect, has somewhat lost it's value. and now it's much more important